Beef cattle breeders use pedigree and performance records to select animals with desirable production traits. Iowa State researchers are taking the selection process a step further with online software that speeds genetic selection. "This project is important to the nation's beef industry because it provides the means to exploit genomics to improve successive crops of sires," says Dorian Garrick, Jay Lush Endowed Chair in Animal Breeding and Genetics. Garrick leads the BIGS Project - an acronym for Bioinformatics to Implement Genetic Selection.